My final day aboard

Christine's Atlantic Circuit
Peter Lansdale
Thu 1 Sep 2016 11:38

Here we are at our final destination for this trip, Arricefe, before my flight back home today. Peter (skipper and "he who must be obeyed") has been badgering me to write a blog for days. So before I start I must apologise that I am no literary writer, I failed the English O level 5 times (plus the Oxford and Cambridge entrance exam once) so here goes.

I joined the boat many days ago in Lagos and was looking forward to a pleasant sail to the Canaries via Madeira, hopefully picking up a tan along the way. This was my first sail on the boat and with the "Atlantic" crew. I'll not go over the days we spent at sea as both Peters have done that already and of course you'll have already read them (haven't you!).

As we all came into sailing from different sides of sailing we all had our foibles on how to do things,some of which you learn early on are different to Peter's. One of which is how to coil and tie a mooring rope - it has to be done a specific way (not the way I do it), so as skipper we obey and as I leave today, my gift to Peter on his next few days alone is hunt the incorrectly tied one.

It's been a brilliant sail and I was amazed how quick I (we?) got into the watch system of 3 hours on 6 hours off. No real tragedies to recall which is strange as most boating trips have at least one, the things I'm not counting are, for example:
    Peter L losing his hat twice into the water.
    The log leaking water into the bilge
    Ripping the parasail
    Numerous attempts at berthing on short inappropriate pontoon fingers in strong winds.

The list could go on but as we eat our last breakfast together of croissants - thank you Peter N, Peter L is looking worried on how long I've been typing and is going to invoke his power of veto so I'll sign off until we meet again in November.

Gary

PS  Lynn, when you come out PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring Peter a pair of blue trousers!